White House hints Americans will need annual COVID boosters
Demand for COVID vaccines boosters have waned with each additional round as many people decide not to get another vaccine dose
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The White House appears to be framing a selling point to Americans skeptical of getting an updated COVID-19 vaccine shot as an annual booster like the flu shot.
In a briefing Tuesday, Biden administration health officials discussed the matter while also outlining the rollout of a new booster shot, Stat News reported.
"It is becoming increasingly clear that looking forward with the COVID-19 pandemic, in the absence of a dramatically different variant, we likely are moving towards a path with a vaccination cadence similar to that of the annual influenza vaccine, with annual updated COVID-19 shots matched to the currently circulating strains for most of the population," said Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease official.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. On Tuesday, Fauci and other health officials discussed the rollout of vaccine shots while saying the shot could be similar to an annual flu shot. (Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Ashish Jha, the White House’s COVID-19 coordinator, said some people remain vulnerable to COVID even with the vaccine and could need additional shots.
"Barring those variant curveballs, for a large majority of Americans, we are moving to the point where a single annual COVID shot should provide a high degree of protection against serious illness all year," Jha said. "That’s an important milestone."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}He added that encouraging people to get updated vaccine shots was reasonable and that it would provide greater protection than earlier vaccines, the news outlet reported.
Health officials have encouraged people to get the vaccine and booster shots.